New Cookoo Smartwatch Looks Good, Lasts Long

Smartwatches like the LG G Watch and Pebble Steel can last a few days on a single charge, but Cookoo's latest connected timepiece promises to survive even longer. The next-generation Cookoo watch, available now for $150, is designed to last months without having to charge up, and sports a new look and wider feature set.

Born out of a successful 2012 Kickstarter, the Cookoo watch sports an understated analog design, with an LCD display that subtly displays app icons beneath the watch hands. The new model comes in two slimmer, more elegant variations; The Sporty Chic collection, which touts a silicone band, and the Urban Explorer line, which features a more flexible nylon one.

Both variations pack the revamped Cookoo watch face, which still has analog watch hands but also displays the time digitally. Icons for calls, battery life, calendar, alarm, email and messages are laid out neatly left to right along the watch face's bottom half. Our biggest complaint about the first model, however, was that it didn't display your messages. The new face doesn't appear to have changed anything about that.

The Cookoo watch is water resistant up to 330 feet, and its old-school button-cell battery promises months of battery life. The smartwatch can sync with iPhone 4s and up, 5th gen iPod touch, iPad mini, iPad 3rd gen and up, and any Android device running 4.3 or newer. The free Cookoo app, available on the App Store and Google Play, lets you customize what types of notifications you get on your wrist.

If you like your smartwatches on the subtle side and would rather not have to charge your wearable every day, you can snag the latest Cookoo from its official webstore.

Mike Andronico is an associate editor at Tom's Guide. When he's not writing about mobile tech and gaming, you can usually catch him playing Street Fighter, devouring Twitch streams and trying to convince people that Hawkeye is the best Avenger.

Please think twice before buying this! I signed up for an account after being a pure reader for many years just to save you from being taken advantage of!

It is true that their kickstarter was technically "successful," but only in the sense that they got their money and "something" was delivered to backers. If you actually read the kickstarter for comments/details, you will see it was a complete failure and very nearly a scam (although i think the failure was due to incompetence and a willingness to over promise to get backer money rather than an outright scam).

What actually happened was the maker made numerous promises to backers that he to this day (or at least a few months ago) did not keep. Years later android support is still basically non existent, even though the maker claimed it would be there. Even for people with iphones, there are constant complaints of the watch not connecting or losing connection constantly.

Many of us gave this person money for a product he never delivered and if I can stop one other person from losing money to this person, the losses of the kickstarter backers will not have been in vain!

They should give all of their kickstarter backers this watch for free so that maybe, they finally deliver on their promises. I'd happily send back the useless paper weight he sent in exchange for it.

But don't take my word for it, talk to OTHER owners of this person's products.